Holding children back = new trend

[LimeSlice]

Your son has a great birthday MM lol

[christy]

Its so confusing, in QLD DD1 who turns 5 in June, would be expected to be going to prep this year. Her birthday is mid-June and she would be by far the youngest... the cut off age in QLD is 30th June.

In NSW, its unusual for kids her age to be in kindy, most of them would start this pre-grade 1 year next year if they were DD1's age.

She's going to an independant school which is an alternative to homeschooling and is doing Kindy part-time until she is ready to move forward. She will be allowed to do kindy over 2 years if its needed or to start grade 1 next year if she's ready. There are only 18 students in the school Kindy - grade 6. For us, this is the perfect way to go, because there is flexibility and we move forwards according to how DD1 is going. There are 4 kindy kids at her school, 2 are turning 5 in the next few weeks and 2 are turning 6 in the next few weeks. So there is almost a year difference, but they are all going along at the same pace atm. There is 1 grade 1 who turned 6 early in the year who sometimes participates with the kindys but its all good.

[Pandora]

i was born 8 days after the cut off, so I had to get kept back whether they wanted to or not, even though I could easily have started school a year earlier academically, i think socially it was a good decision.

I think the teacher you spoke to just picked the wrong words.

[Astrid]

Watching this with interest. Whilst there is no issue with DD1 as she is a June baby, bubs is an April baby so I have choice. The silly thing is if she was born a few days later there would be no choice.

I have been chatting to the local mums with older kids and others who work in the children services area. The general feeling I get is that there is a trend down here is to hold back. Talking to the mums that have been in that position it seem that there has not been any major problem in doing so, if anything those who chose to send early have tended to regret that decision.

The team leader at DD1's childcare centre wishes that the cutoff was based on calendar year and there was no choice. At the moment with the cutoff in place there is often a very large age gap between the youngest and the eldest. She errs on the side of caution and recommends holding back.

It is doing my head in and I don't have to make a decision for awhile yet.

[~Raven~]

I have both a Sept and a June baby at school (well not babies anymore but YKWIM). My Sept boy (M) needed an extra year but my June boy (A) didn't and I think he would have coped just fine if he started school at 4.5.

I LOL at trend. It's not a trend at all. More like the parents being more in tune with the needs of the child and not sending them to school whether they are ready or not.

[Pretty Butterfly]

Regaurdless of age and time of cutoffs, I will be sending my kids so they turn 6 in kinder, and 18 in yr 12.

Here we have a big problem of kids in other years not being able to play with their friends in aged sports, making them go back and play with the next year down. This actually can cause a LOT if distress for littlies, and a bit of teasing, having to go back and play with the "babies"...and this continues all through high school with aged sport teams unfortunatly.

I also want my kids to finish school at a decent age, not 16 or 17. I dread my child going of to uni at only 16, 17, not being very mature, or even able to drive a car on there own!!

So in Kinder, Za will turn 6 in the march, Kane in the July and with Harmony, her b'day is 8th January... so she will turn 5 and then start, and will be six just before going into 1st grade.

Going along with the "trend" is a bigger one up here of repeating all kids before high school who are too young "to cope" with high school, at only 10, 11 instead of 12.

I"d rather they went a year late and had an extra year of prep, then had to repeat without their friends.

Thats just what we've decided to do.... . Every mum has to decide for her own family, and you will make the right one babe!!

[Danni]

jodie raised a good point about age sports! I also missed out on a lot of things.

example,our school held a driving camp. All my friends went except me as I wasn't even 16 yet!

Academically I excelled in primary school and found no real issues fom p-6. The biggest issues started to arise when things got serious in VCE. It made me realise that my closest friend had a whole 12 months more life experience than me and it made her study a lot easier.

BUt yes, as my friends were all driving to school, I wasn't. I also wasn't allowed to go out as I didn't have i.d etc.

Mason was born on the 15th April and I am 99% sure we will keep him home for that extra year.

[Karina]

I was born middle of june, and Mum told me that my primary school didnt want to take me because I was so close to the cut off date. She had to make some special application to the school to get them to take me that year. So, I started when I was 4, and turned 5 in the June of that year. I was ready to start, and mum wasnt keen on having me stay back a whole year as the preschool I was at told her I was ready and it would be best to send me that year. I was able to commnicate well, I could read pretty well for a 4 year old and all that sort of stuff.
In primary school it was not really a bit deal that I was younger. The only annoying thing I remember was that in Kindy, everyone got a Dollarmites account with the Commonwealth bank, but you had to be 5 years old to have one, so I wasnt able to get one till later in the year.
There were plenty of people who were a year (or more) older than me all through school. In high school, some people were 18 months older than me. I have to admit, in year 11 and year 12, I probably was a bit immature... but I think it was also to do with the fact that school was just not a good learning environment for me. I didnt do well at school, but I excelled at TAFE the following year.

Even if the age cut off went by calender year, you'd still have up to a year in age differnce between the kids anyway? Theres really nothing much you can do to remove the age gaps. Also, if you move states, you end up with big age differences too sometimes, depending on where you are going to/from.

If preschool reckons your kids are ready for school, then they probably are. Theyre specialists in that sort of thing so they are able to assess it.

[Papillon]

Regaurdless of age and time of cutoffs, I will be sending my kids so they turn 6 in kinder, and 18 in yr 12.

Here we have a big problem of kids in other years not being able to play with their friends in aged sports, making them go back and play with the next year down. This actually can cause a LOT if distress for littlies, and a bit of teasing, having to go back and play with the "babies"...and this continues all through high school with aged sport teams unfortunatly.

I also want my kids to finish school at a decent age, not 16 or 17. I dread my child going of to uni at only 16, 17, not being very mature, or even able to drive a car on there own!!

So in Kinder, Za will turn 6 in the march, Kane in the July and with Harmony, her b'day is 8th January... so she will turn 5 and then start, and will be six just before going into 1st grade.

Going along with the "trend" is a bigger one up here of repeating all kids before high school who are too young "to cope" with high school, at only 10, 11 instead of 12.

I"d rather they went a year late and had an extra year of prep, then had to repeat without their friends.

Thats just what we've decided to do.... . Every mum has to decide for her own family, and you will make the right one babe!!

Jodie, you have actually really given me something to think of/about.

I really hadnt broken it down and thought of it that way. I sure dont want her to be at any disadvantage, and the few points you made there are actually very valid!!

/off to ponder

[New Dawn]

OMG try movinbg from state to state they are ALL different...

DS is a april 00 baby so in QLD he had to start school when he was 5 turning 6, but we were in Darwin before that so he had already done a whole year of trans and was in year 1 when we moved... so he went almost back a year ( as year 1 is ( was ) the 1st year of school), Last year we moved to Vic he was able to go to either year 2 or 3 as he was in the age group for both... we choose yr 2 as he was already stuggling...

DD1 is May 03 so last year while in QLD she started prep ( as they only just brought it in ) but when we moved to VIC she couldnt go to school as she wasnt in the right age group, so we had to put her into Kindy, she wasnt happy but I was coz I thought she was too young to be in school...

Now that we are once again moving to QLD I know they will want DS in year 4 and DD in year 1 but I dont want this ( expecally for DS ) so I am going to have to fight to put them intom year 3 and prep... DS will be able to go to year 3 as he is way behind and we have all the reports from everyone telling us this but I think they will try to put DD up a year....

Sorry Pap just a little take over there but like the girls have said if you think your child is ready then put her into school next year... As far as I know with Vic kindy coz you have a child close to the cut off ( any child born form jan onwards ) you have the chance to pull them out of kindy at the end of term 2 the kiddy teachers will talk to those parents they think this will apply too... they do it at the end of year to coz of funding they way your child will ortermaticly have a place in kindy, so you dont have to go on the wait list... but if you wait until the end of the year it is harder for the kindy to keep the children back... iykwim....

[Crystalwings]

I think the word 'trend' was probably just a figure of speech but as an early childhood educator we are definately seeing children who need to be held back the extra year. To me 4.5 is really young to begin full time schooling for alot of children, they are often tired from 5 full days and find it more difficult then an older child. There is also the fact that they will be treated the same as the 6yr olds and IMO there is a huge gap between 4 and 6 and the expectations should be different but school isn't that individualised. In my experience it doesn't matter if the school is private or public and don't think that is relevent.

In saying that there are lots of things to concider IRT starting school. In general boys need the extra year as they mature later and often don't want to sit at a desk and do that kind of work and their concentration and attention span takes longer to develop then girls. We find that with girls they often still just want to play mums and bubs at 4.5
and their emotional development can take a little longer. Obviously these are generalisations but I really think that the cut off should be in calender years. As others have mentioned the later years are a whole nother kettle of fish. We have seen so many parents send their children to school for financial reasons when they simply weren'y ready and they have really stuggled and you as a EC teacher you feel as though you have struggled.
I think more parents are holding their child back because they want to err on the side of caution and not have to repeat kinder or subsequent years.

I'm not sure about other states but in NSW there is also a before school screening that parents can take thier child to and it is important to take on what your childs preschool or child care centre has to say in regards to SS.

IMO Allowing your child to learn and grow through play at this stage of their life is still really important and we should value these early years more as a society. I think we make our kids grow up far to early in this country.

Can I ask what the deciding factors are for you? What makes you say "yes, my child is ready for school?"

Hope I haven't offended, this is a personal decision, I just wanted to add some a EC perspective.

[Turkish Delight]

My DS was born in March 2002 and being in VIC he was the youngest at kindy and in prep.

Being gifted he was excelled into Grade 1 during his 3rd in prep. He is now 2 years younger than his class mates in grade 3. He gets on fine with them. His teacher tells me he is more social this year than last.

The school wanted to keep him down last year, so he is with his peers but still do grade 3 work whilst repeating year 2 and i strongly objected. He didn't have a problem getting on with the older kids, then why should he be kept down?

Yes, he might have a problem at uni, when his friends are out clubbing and he's at home with us, but what the heck, i'm sure he'll survive. He'll be 16 during first year uni!

I don't think age has anything to do with it. If the kid is ready to attend school in your eyes then they should be allowed to go.

[teachmum]

Ok. It doesn't matter when the cut-off date is you're going to have a 12mth gap. In WA we changed to June cut-off instead of December. This simply means that children born in the last half of the year will be six months older when they start school.

Having come out the other end of the school system, my dd is in year twelve, I can see the benefit of having a delayed start to school. My DD will finish school before she turns 17 because her bday is at the end of October. She's a bright girl and never had any problems academically. I wish now that I'd kept her home for another year because then she would have been more ready to make decisions about her future.

Kids are at school for a long time and there has been a worrying 'trend' occurring where we now see 3 year old kindy. In our haste to get them reading and writing we often forget that they learn best with lots of play, love, attention and being read to. You know your child best. Ignore the 'trends' and do what you think is right.

[Liz]

I'm not expecting DS to learn to read & write at 3 yr old kindy. He's there purely for social reasons.. we've never been involved in playgroup or anything, only socialised with friends and their families. I'm hoping he'll be reading before going to 'big school' but that will be from our teaching him.. not preschool.

I'll be relying a lot on the teachers' assessment of whether he's ready for school in 2011, as they see what he's like at preschool and I don't.

[Muppity]

I know a little boy who turned 5 in between Christmas and New Years last year and is the youngest in his kinder class. It is crazy! There are kids a full 18 months older than him - I really feel for the teachers. His parents say that if they had known they probably would have held him back - just because the other kids are just so much bigger.

[Jennifer13]

I'm not in a 'hurry' for my DD to learn to read and write, but I started her at preschool last year. There are several in our area who do preschool from 2 years until school. This is different to daycare as they have a proper preschool curriculum, just aimed at younger children.

I actually think it was an excellent idea for our family. She is an only child and I decided to work part-time. She only went for one day, but she learned a lot during that year that was reinforcing what I teach her at home. And she made some wonderful friends.

This year she is going along for two days. They are learning letters, etc, but so much of the teaching focus on other skills that are important for development (physical, fine motor, etc). She is also learning French at preschool and is picking it up so quickly (knows the days of the week in French better than English!). Next year, it will be three days. She is gradually building up to school, rather than having to deal with a sudden change from full-time at home to full-time school away from home.

She is spending most of her time with me and/or her father and I don't schedule extra-curricular activities in our free time, apart from swimming lessons. As she is an only child atm I think the social interaction with her peers is very important for her development. I'd be running around all week to playgroup, playdates, music classes, etc to try to fit in as much social interaction - and I don't fancy that!

While I do 'teach' her at home, I am not trained in child development and including some experts (ie teachers) in her life is having a great deal of benefit for her.